I'll Stay Here As Long As You'll Let Me
by Brown Eyes Parker
Summary: She angled herself across the couch and kissed him. It had been a couple years since they had last kissed and it felt like coming home. He was warm and comfortable and familiar.


**I apologize in advance if this is terribly out of character for both Eddie and Jamie. This is my first time writing for them and I always need to find their voices and my footing when I start out writing for a new ship/fandom. Title comes from "You Matter To Me" from Waitress, the Musical.**

 **.**

"You want to know something?" Eddie whispered later that night when things had settled down and they were by themselves at his apartment. "I love you."

"You do, do you?" Jamie asked, smiling at her.

"I do," Eddie replied.

"Well, I love you too."

Eddie didn't realize she had been holding her breath until he said it back. She shouldn't have been surprised. They had said it before even if it hadn't been in so many words. They had been dancing around each other for years and for the last few weeks, it felt like it would culminate in something more. But there was a difference hearing it aloud than knowing it. There was a difference in the three words, eight letters than just hearing the elusive _"I have feelings for you"_.

She angled herself across the couch and kissed him. It had been a couple years since they had last kissed and it felt like coming home. He was warm and comfortable and familiar. As he pulled her closer, she vaguely wondered why they hadn't gotten together sooner. When he kissed her back, she couldn't think about anything at all.

 **.**

"I should go," Eddie said a little while later when she realized what time it was, Jamie's head was in her lap and she was absent-mindedly running her fingers through his hair.

"You should stay," Jamie replied. Eddie froze and he sat up to look at her, taking her hands in his without breaking her gaze. "Stay," he repeated.

"Okay," she agreed, nodding because she didn't really want to go, not after everything that had happened over the course of the day. "Okay, I'll stay."

He pulled her up off the couch and led her to his bedroom, kissing her in the threshold before closing the door behind them. She leaned into him and he brushed his hand up and down her back. She sighed and he took her to bed.

 **.**

Eddie woke up on Saturday afternoon with sunshine in her eyes and Jamie's arms wrapped around her waist. He was just waking up too, both of them exhausted from the events of the day before. She still felt like she was dreaming a little bit, there was no way any of this could be real. . .

But. . . she was really there in his bed, wrapped up in him. _Finally_.

"Hi," she said when he opened his eyes sleepily.

Jamie's face lit up when he saw her still there. "Good morning!"

"Afternoon," she corrected. "We've been asleep for a while."

Jamie untangled his arms and legs from her and reached over for his phone. "Oh. I guess you're right."

"How are you?" Eddie asked, suddenly feeling an odd sort of shyness.

"I'm good," Jamie answered. "How are you?"

"Good," she echoed, biting her bottom lip. "Hey. . . I was thinking. . ."

"Yeah?" Jamie asked.

"Just. . ." she trailed off. "How about we. . . go and get some breakfast? I'm starving."

"I think it would be considered lunch given the time," Jamie pointed out.

Eddie swung her legs over the side of the bed and grabbed her jeans, pulling them on. "It's never too late for coffee and donuts," she replied as she discarded his t-shirt for one of his sweaters.

She disappeared into his bathroom for a few minutes to brush her teeth and fix her hair. She looked at herself in the mirror and realized she couldn't stop smiling. She splashed water on her face and glanced at herself before going back out to see Jamie.

He was sitting up in bed, waiting to take his turn in the bathroom. He looked up when he saw her, his grin was just as big and stupid as her's. She went over to him and bent down to kiss him when he shook his head.

"Morning breath," he said.

"I don't care," she replied, kissing him anyways.

"This is nice but really, you need to go and let me get cleaned up," Jamie told her after a few seconds. "I'll be right back, I promise!"

When she was alone, Eddie made the bed and folded the pajamas they'd worn the night before to distract herself while she waited for Jamie to come back. She wasn't one of those needy girls who needed their man around every waking second. But it _was_ still new. . . it was the start of something they both had wanted for a while. She had been so close to losing him the afternoon before.

(She didn't want to think about what would have happened if she hadn't heard _that_ voice. . .)

She thought she was allowed to want to be with him every waking second. . . just a little bit.

"Ready?" Jamie asked when he came back out. He looked a little surprised. "You didn't have to make the bed."

Eddie shrugged and went over to him, putting her arm around his waist. "It's fine. Come on, I really am hungry!"

They wound up a really late breakfast instead of coffee and donuts at a diner close to his place. They held hands across the table and took turns playing music on the little jukebox while they looked at each other, a little love-struck just because they could.

"I should go home," Eddie said when they were done eating and lingering over cups of coffee.

"You don't have to go," Jamie answered. "Stay. Stay with me."

Eddie didn't think she'd ever get tired of him asking her to stay. "Okay," she agreed.

 **.**

"I was thinking," Jamie said early the next morning.

"About what?" Eddie asked, stretching and covering a yawn with the back of her hand.

"What if. . ." Jamie hesitated for a second before shaking his head. "I was thinking we should get married."

Eddie's heart leaped in her throat. _"Married?"_ she choked.

"You know I love you. I have for a long time now. I know we haven't dated or anything like that but it's only for people who don't know each other as well as we do and I think we know each other. . . better than anyone else."

Eddie looked at him, stunned at what he was suggesting. She knew she wanted to marry him but. . .

"What if it breaks up our partnership?" she asked.

"I've been reading about it," Jamie said, pulling the handbook off his nightstand and thumbing through it. "There's nothing here that says we can't get married and that we'd have to go to different precincts if we did."

Eddie smirked at him. "How long have you been thinking about marrying me, Regan?"

"That's not an answer, Eddie."

Eddie's pulse picked up a little. "You-you think you can just ask me like _this_? In bed on a Sunday morning without a ring?"

"I'll get you whatever ring you'd like," Jamie promised. "So, will you marry me?"

Eddie's grin split her whole entire face, she didn't really care about a ring. "Yeah. Yeah, I will marry you Jamie!" she answered, pulling him down on top of her to kiss him.

He whispered vows in her ear that he'd been working on and she whispered some back. It didn't even strike her as funny that they had both been thinking about it for so long.

"I've got to go and have Sunday dinner," Jamie said after a while, he smiled down at her. "You could come with me."

"I have got to go and take a shower and change my clothes!" Eddie replied.

"Well, we'll swing by your apartment on the way to my dad's. You have to come with me, we're going to have to tell everyone eventually and I don't really want to wait."

"Okay, okay! I'll go with you! But you have to let me get up first!"

He groaned. "I know."

"We'll have plenty time for _this_ later," Eddie said, feeling slightly giddy at what she was going to say next. "We'll have the rest of our lives, actually. Now go on, we're going to be late!"

"I'm up! I'm up!" he huffed.

Eddie sighed contentedly and leaned back into her pillow, while she waited him to do whatever it was he needed to do before they went back to her apartment so she could get ready for her first family dinner.

She absent-mindedly played with her bare ring finger and allowed herself to daydream of white lace and promises and Catholic cathedrals.

Mrs. Jameson Regan.

She liked the sound of that.

 **End**

 **Author's Note:**

 **I read the TV Line article about how we already knew that they loved each other and blah, blah. Whatever. I still wouldn't have minded seeing the declaration though, so I wrote this. Let me reiterate my apology from earlier about it being slightly OOC. I know that's been a big complaint about the finale as well and tell me what you think, please!**

 **Holly, 5/15/201**


End file.
